A method and apparatus for determining a decay time of a luminescence of a sample, comprising the following steps: excitation of a light source by means of an excitation current from a current source; irradiating the sample with a light of a wavelength suitable for exciting luminescence in the sample, periodically varying the irradiation intensity; measuring a light emitted from the sample, generating a first electrical signal in response to the light emitted from the sample, and amplifying the first electrical signal; detecting a first phase difference between the excitation current and the amplified first electrical signal; generating a second electrical signal, wherein the second electrical signal is generated directly from the excitation current of the current source and is subsequently amplified; detecting a second phase difference between the excitation current and the amplified second electrical signal; and determination of the decay time of the sample's luminescence based on a phase difference between the excitation current and the sample's light emission.

A polarization measuring device is operated by passing light having a predetermined input polarization state to a sample for a potentially polarization changing interaction and from the sample through a polarization selective analyzer and to an intensity detector. The method proceeds by varying an angle between the output polarization state of the light emanating from the sample and the analyzer. The wavelength of the light reaching the intensity detector is varied, and a plurality of intensity measurements are performed successively at different constellations of polarization. Spectral modulation states and corresponding intensity values are stored together with polarization and spectral values representing the corresponding constellation. The polarization modulation and the spectral modulation are performed simultaneously and continuously, and during a single, monotonic variation of the polarization modulation state, the spectral modulation state is varied plural times and during each spectral modulation period (.sub.) plural successive intensity measurements are performed.

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a method, apparatus and computer readable media for analyzing objects using a coherent optical system. This innovative approach leverages dual-polarization coherent modulation to generate optical signals encoded with digital information across multiple dimensions, such as amplitude, phase, and polarization. These signals are transmitted to a target scene resulting in reflected signals that are received and processed to detect and identify objects based on a comparison with the original transmitted signals. These techniques offer significant improvements in accuracy and robustness, overcoming limitations of traditional lidar and depth camera systems, particularly in dynamic or complex environments. The disclosed technology is applicable across various industries, including autonomous vehicles and environmental monitoring, providing enhanced precision in distance, velocity, and polarization measurements. Other embodiments are disclosed.

An optical analysis system and an optical analysis method, which simply change driving electric currents of light-emitting units via using a control and process unit, so that a wavelength range and a peak wavelength of an irradiated light generated by each light-emitting unit may be fine-tuned. A plurality of irradiating lights with different wavelength ranges and peak wavelengths are irradiated to the object to be tested in different times, so that merely fewer light-emitting units may be used to improve a detection resolution and a detection accuracy of a spectrum of the object to be tested.

Optogenetic systems and methods for probing a specimen using spatio-temporally modulated illumination light are disclosed. A method may include generating illumination light, the illumination light including a plurality of illumination protocols temporally sampled and interleaved with one another at a time-division-multiplexed (TDM) sampling rate, each illumination protocol being for illuminating a respective region of interest (ROI) of a plurality of ROIs of the specimen. The illumination light may include either activation or excitation light, or both. The method may also include applying a spatio-temporal modulation to the illumination light and directing the resulting modulated illumination light onto the specimen. The modulation may include repeatedly imparting, at a pattern switching rate matched and synchronized with the TDM sampling rate, a sequence of a plurality of spatial modulation patterns to the plurality of temporally sampled and interleaved illumination protocols, each spatial modulation pattern mapping to a respective one of the ROIs.

Optogenetic systems and methods for probing a specimen using spatio-temporally modulated illumination light are disclosed. A method may include generating illumination light, the illumination light including a plurality of illumination protocols temporally sampled and interleaved with one another at a time-division-multiplexed (TDM) sampling rate, each illumination protocol being for illuminating a respective region of interest (ROI) of a plurality of ROIs of the specimen. The illumination light may include either activation or excitation light, or both. The method may also include applying a spatio-temporal modulation to the illumination light and directing the resulting modulated illumination light onto the specimen. The modulation may include repeatedly imparting, at a pattern switching rate matched and synchronized with the TDM sampling rate, a sequence of a plurality of spatial modulation patterns to the plurality of temporally sampled and interleaved illumination protocols, each spatial modulation pattern mapping to a respective one of the ROIs.

A microscope-based system is provided. The microscope-based system includes an illumination assembly comprising an illumination light source and a pattern illumination device, and a processing module coupled to the illumination light source and the pattern illumination device. The processing module is configured to identify regions of interest in a sample to generate a two-dimensional illumination mask for each of the multiple fields of view, and for each field of view, determine an illumination sequence of the regions of interest by minimizing a sum of a plurality of region-to-region traveling distances between sequential regions of interest, determine an illumination path following the illumination sequence within each of the regions of interest, and control the illumination light source and the pattern illumination device to illuminate the regions of interest based on the illumination sequence and the illumination path for each of the multiple fields of view. Methods of use are also provided.